I must point out that my complaint is not with Boys and Maughan, however, my grievance is with Gardner Croft, who amalgamated with them on 2nd May 2023.
I had previously made a complaint in 2019 after they had acted for me in a house purchase, which I had to take to the Legal Ombudsman, who concluded that their service had fallen short of a reasonable standard, however, it still cost me £3000.
After selling the house I found that I needed to make another complaint, so, on 23/12/2022 I emailed them and on 03/01/2023 I received a reply, which contained an attachment of their Client Complaint Procedures which contained the following:
Written complaints will be acknowledged in within 7 days of receipt whereby the name of the person responsible for handling the complaint will be confirmed. A full reply will be sent as soon as the matter has been investigated and our proposals for dealing with your concerns have been agreed upon. In any case, we will always endeavour to provide a full response within 28 days. If that is not possible, an interim response will be given explaining why it is not possible to meet this deadline, when we expect our investigations to be completed and a response finalised. You should allow us up to eight weeks to resolve your complaint. If after eight weeks we have not dealt with your complaint to your satisfaction, you can involve the Legal Ombudsman.
When I did not get an answer or an interim response after 8 weeks I took the matter to the Legal Ombudsman, it was only after they were involved that I received a reply on 10/07/2023.
During the period from making my complaint to actually getting a reply, the firm had amalgamated and email addresses changed, without informing me.
My experiences with this firm has not only left me considerably out of pocket, but has also been extremely stressful and time consuming. My advise to anyone is avoid them at your peril!!!
This is a new review posted on 21/05/2024
